


Lead Pencil Co. Portraits

by R_Quarion



Category: L. A. noire
Genre: Dorks in Love, M/M, Multi, Other, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27119086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Quarion/pseuds/R_Quarion
Summary: Cole finds his eye set on a piece of art he never could have valued at this time...
Relationships: Stefan Bekowsky/Cole Phelps
Kudos: 16





	Lead Pencil Co. Portraits

Cole had always been good at sketching. Well, really, he was good at picturing things mentally. Scoping out the world around him and rendering it in the canvas of his mind. Transferring it onto paper was the challenge. 

After the war Cole had a tremor in his hands. His handwriting was forever changed but, in time, the flow of lead against paper began to feel natural. 

Natural, thankfully. Therapeutic, endlessly. 

In his early days after the war, after the bullet had been pulled from his back, he spent days in the hospital. Just, drawing. The other papers in the room that doctors scribbled notes on pictured stories of life and death. Cole's pages froze moments in time. 

A gentleman who had been hit by a car. Cole sketched the soft expression on his face when he finally fell to sleep. A nurse who would often visit hesitantly in the later hours of the day. Her hand would linger on the door frame. Cole sketched the way her nails would come to rest on the wood, holding onto it as if to steady herself. Her smile reflected such stability. 

When Cole was sent to home recovery, he kept up similar habits. He sketched the flower pin that Marie tended to fix her hair with. There was something about the fireplace that had captured his attention one night. Flames weren't a static model, but Cole found himself drawn to it. Against all odds, the licking fire wasn't a threat. Even if it could burn the paper he drew on. 

By the time he was nearly recovered, Cole had sketched nearly everything in his home. From the windowsill plants to the cracks in the ceiling. Though, Cole couldn't stay in one spot for long. The second he was cleared to work, he did just that. 

Cole did what was undeniably him and merged his personal life with his work. Drawing was no longer a time to clear his head, no, it was connecting obscure dots on a map that only his mind was seeing. Watercolours being replaced with crimson rivers at crime scenes and the once comforting tip of the pencil was now being used to list names and accuse suspects. 

He'd get home much too late, throw his hat and jacket off and bury his face into his pillow as if it could steady the tremor that had moved from his hands to his heart. Change. Cole was never that good with change. His move to Traffic was a win in his mind but a hesitation in his step. Cole was set on the idea that he was too far gone once he was in traffic. 

Drawing felt worthless to him. The patients in the hospital, mere forced acquaintances. The nurse, a mere worker. The pin in Marie's hair, a mere reminder that a piece of metal was holding more together in their marriage then he was. The fire, well, that had caught alight and reduced Cole's love for canvases to ash. The faces he was now sketching in his book were guilty, if not the crime they were in an interview room for. 

Eyes became key evidence for Cole. They were one way mirrors, seeing out but not being able to see back in. No sparkle, no sense of colour, eyes could hide killers and Cole refused to find any beauty in them. 

Until, that was, he saw his new partner Stefan Bekowsky in the lighting of a sunset. It had been a moment like any other. Cole had turned to ask a question, short tone and annoyed without hesitation, but had fallen quiet. 

Cole wondered why he had never noticed how pure Stefan's eyes were. Blue and green in two tone shades, dancing light off each other as if they were pure opals. Then he cracked a smile and, even if the sun weren't setting, Cole would swear he was glowing. 

"Star struck there, partner?" Stefan had joked, 

"Something like that…" Cole managed to mutter, mouth dry in his realisation. 

Mind is the sum of the best of our senses. Cole told himself, over and over, as if the concept would free him of the realisation that Stefan Bekowsky was gorgeous. His mind wanted to forget he had ever considered Stefan as attractive. His senses screamed otherwise. Veins pulsating with an adrenaline that tore through Cole so ruthlessly that he could near damn well claim that Stefan had swept him off his feet. 

When Cole fell asleep that night, it wasn't considering the faces that fronted the evidence and lies. No, it was Stefan. The pole, his new partner, whose smile would do better to brighten a room than any lightbulb. And much to his annoyance, he awoke with the same mental image. 

The urge to grab a lead pencil co. pencil was nearly overwhelming. Cole felt the need to sketch out his partner. To preserve that smile for darker days yet to come. He'd keep that piece of paper close, for times where he was not focused on the sunshine. Where he needed reminding that those around him could do better than the sunrise itself. 

So he did and he did so with malicious compliance. 

Sketching with no delicacy in the slightest, where the sharp pencil tip dug into the paper and tore it into small shreds. The graphite itself began to cave into the force, crumbling to dust only to be smudged into the texture of it. Cole viciously sketches the depth of Stefan's cheekbones, shading away the hesitation that Cole latched onto his affection. He drew perfectly the dimples that formed as Stefan would smile. It was leaking through, as if ink, and his heart would swell at the mere prospect of his partner. Perfect. Stunning. Damaged. 

With a drink in one hand, a led pencil in the other and a relentless hatred in his heart at his ache for Stefan Bekowsky. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for your patience!


End file.
